The disclosures of Published U.S. Patent Application Nos. 2008/0152369 to DiRubio et al. and 2008/0152371 to Burry et al. are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties. The present exemplary embodiments relate to document processing systems such as printers, copiers, multi-function devices, etc., and operating methods for mitigating retransfer and other high field failure modes associated with air breakdown. Examples of these failure modes include, but are not limited to, image noise, image mottle, deletions, color shifts, poor color macro-uniformity, poor color stability, and cross color developer contamination. Multi-color toner-based Xerographic printing systems typically employ two or more xerographic marking devices to individually transfer toner of a given color to an intermediate transfer medium, such as a drum or belt, with the toner being subsequently transferred from the intermediate medium to a sheet or other final print medium, after which the twice transferred toner is fused to the final print. Retransfer occurs when toner on the intermediate belt from previous, upstream marking devices is wholly or partially removed (scavenged) due to high fields within the transfer nip. High fields in the transfer nips in the previous downstream marking devices can adversely modify the charge state of the toner on the intermediate transfer belt (ITB) through air breakdown mechanisms, further exacerbating retransfer. When this happens, the desired amount of one or more toner colors is not transferred to the final printed sheet, and the retransfer problem worsens as the number of colors increases. Retransfer at a given marking device may be reduced by lowering the transfer field strength at that device, but this may lead to incomplete transfer during image building at that device. In other words, the transfer nip may be transferring toner to the ITB at one region in the cross-process direction (image building), which requires high fields, while simultaneously scavenging toner from the ITB in another region (retransfer). In addition, the quality requirements of multi-color document processing systems are constantly increasing, with customers demanding the improved imaging capabilities without the adverse effects of retransfer and incomplete transfer. Accordingly, a need remains for improved multi-color document processing systems and operational techniques through which retransfer and the aforementioned problems can be mitigated.